Papa Sangre – review

Papa Sangre is playful, mischievous and retains an intensity of interaction, despite the lack of obvious visual stimuli.

Papa Sangreis, at heart, a horror game but one that is both unsettling and effective by focusing its creative currency on the player's imagination. The gamer is the builder of the nightmares within and the titular Papa Sangre a factor of the world created in your mind's eye, because, essentially, this is a game with almost no visuals or graphics.

Best played through headphones and with your eyes closed, it builds detailed 3D worlds from sound and lets you explore them by tiptoeing around, using your fingers like tiny feet on the screen. While typical console games offer obvious parallels with cinema, Papa Sangre is more comparable to becoming engrossed by an immersive novel. Loosely themed around the Mexican Day of the Dead, Papa Sangre is playful, mischievous and retains an intensity of interaction, despite the lack of obvious visual stimuli. The main task is hunting down collectibles, using audio reference points such as the noise from the textures below your feet or the sound of a swinging sign in the distance to navigate. But most fun comes from evading and outwitting audio-sensitive monsters, who will stalk you to terrifying effect.

A feat of the imagination in gameplay and its very creation, this is an unusual but essential addition to the genre. Don't miss it.